Technically I’m a criminal. This past Saturday evening I maliciously broke the law with reckless disregard for any of my victims. Those harmed by my unlawful onslaught will never be the same.
Yet, for some odd reason I do not feel sorry for urinating in my back yard, amongst some bushes, in the pitch black, when all my house bathrooms were occupied. My guilt is most certainly undeniable, but we all know “when ya gotta go ya gotta go.”
Laws are laws. They are put in place to maintain safety, and provide healthy living for their inhabitants. Yet, I, along with most every other healthy human being, break laws on a daily basis (yes, even police). Those who enforce laws (police), as humans, must be able to see around certain laws a la J-walking across PA Ave or soberly peeing completely out of the public’s eye in one’s own back yard. Enforcers must evaluate humanity before they slap handcuffs on an 18 year old freshman sipping their first beer at a college party.
In a most conventional sense, police are the ultimate checkers and balancers of their jurisdictions— campo for McDaniel and Westminster PD for off campus. Yet, very rarely is their supreme power checked or balanced within the realm of just what the hell makes sense.
Every Free Press issue I take the liberty of musing at the stupidity of college students like myself and all the ridiculous ways that they find themselves appearing on the campus safety blotter. I can honestly say that I have been treated with respect and fairness by campo here at McDaniel. In my experience, with few exceptions, campo does a good job of evaluating harm and understanding that college students are going to party and drink. Students that are not harming themselves or others are usually let off by campo with a, “Don’t be a dumb ass and pour that drink out.”
Students that act belligerent towards officers usually get written up, but that seems fair.
My advice to students who come into contact with campus safety while breaking any law: be cooperative, smart, and try to act as sober as possible.
Yet, campo is campo and the Westminster police are something different. The city police find college students a nuisance that need to be taught a lesson.
My advice for students who happen to come into contact with city police: run.
It’s truly a tight line that students on and off campus must walk. On campus students are within the realms of what is just and fair. Yet strict drinking and partying regulations have most students heading off campus on Thursday and Saturday nights for fun. Issues not only with violence (remember a few off-campus incidents last semester including a sexual assault on a student by a non-student), but also being at the mercy of city police with a completely different agenda than campo becomes a serious problem.
Partying is fun and it will forever be a college tradition and outlet for students everywhere, including us here at McDaniel. Controlling partying is A if not THE job of campus safety. Its maintenance is vital to the student-college relationship and this power rests in campo’s hands. When the duty of controlling college students is passed off to Westminster PD or other off-campus police, the knowledge/understanding of student-college relationship is out the window, and safety and care for our students is voided.
A scary thought for the parents of incoming freshman
